2016-10-20 Meeting Notes

Date

Oct 20, 2016

Attendees

AY 2016-2017 Members: Michael Bailey, Can Bayram, Mohamed Ali Belabbas, Subhonmesh Bose, Weng Chew, John Dallesasse, Peter Dragic, James Eden, Liang Gao, Bruce Hajek, Pavan Kumar Hanumolu, Kiruba Haran, Mark Hasegawa-Johnson, Yih-Chun Hu, Seth Hutchinson, Ravishankar Iyer, Erhan Kudeki (Ex-Officio), Minjoo Lee, Stephen Levinson, Steven Lumetta, Jonathan Makela (Chair), Sanjay Patel, Maxim Raginsky, William Sanders (Ex-Officio), Christopher Schmitz, Jose Schutt-Aine, David Varodayan, Lara Waldrop, Zhizhen Zhao, Hao Zhu, Wenjuan Zhu

Discussion Items

Minutes

• Called to order at 2:06pm.
• Minutes from Oct 13, 2016 were approved.
• The committee discussed ECE 313 and the two different versions (sections A-E, section F) being offered in Spring 2016.
  • The discussion was motivated by the 2015-2016 Curriculum Committee report, specifically the statement:

Certain exceptions to the “unified” nature of multi-section courses can be considered (e.g., the “CompE” version of ECE 313 that has been offered in the past) with the approval of the course director. This approach can be viewed as an experimental method that allows for innovation within the curriculum. However, a mechanism to communicate this non-standard approach to students needs to be developed, such as utilizing the x98 nomenclature. Similarly, we should consider denoting this on a student’s transcript for the benefit of graduate schools and employers.

• • Hajek, who is the course director for ECE 313, and Iyer, who is offering section F, described that the two versions follow the same syllabus.  They differ in the emphasis of the material and the evaluation of the students.  Section F was designed to be more attractive to CE students. Sections A-E are designed for both EE and CE students.
  • Kudeki pointed out that similar approaches had been taken in other 300-level courses (i.e., ECE 350) in which different sections had different emphases dependent on the instructor.
    • There was sentiment that instructor flexibility within a given course offering is important to maintain.  Yet, uniformity in assessment was also desirable. It was pointed out, however, that there are different exams given from semester to semester, so why not within a semester?
  • Makela asked how students were informed of the differences so they could make an informed choice when scheduling taking ECE 313.
    • Hajek stated that in the past he had sent out an email after registration had begun, but before the semester, to let students know of the differences in the sections and allow them time to rearrange their schedules.
    • It was suggested that the differences be advertised ahead of time so students do not have to rearrange schedules. Kudeki and Varodayan will take care of this by posting to the Piazza advising site and advertisement through an email sent out by the advising office.
  • A similar question was raised as to how to inform the faculty of the differences in these courses so they can more effectively steer students to the different sections.
    • Faculty will receive a copy of the email sent out from advising.
    • This led to a brief discussion about how the faculty, both new and old, learn about these changes and the evolution of the curriculum.
  • Iyer was asked how frequently he envisioned section F being offered.  He stated that he was in discussion with other CE faculty who might be interested in offering the CE-focused section.  The section could conceivably be offered once a year.
    • Hajek raised the question of how the logistics of the course (i.e., class participation) would scale as the section size increases.  Iyer responded that a lot was done in micro-groups.  With the section enrollment cap increasing for Spring 2017, he will reassess how this works with a larger section size.
  • The overall assessment was that this sort of multi-approach offering of a course was acceptable to the curriculum committee as long as there was active involvement of the course director to make sure the divergence between the different sections was small. Care needs to be taken that the differences in the material and approaches do not adversely affect courses in the curriculum that depend on the course in question as a prerequisite. Again, this is the responsibility of the course director and the community of instructors involved in offering the different sections.
    • It was suggested by Bayram that a study be performed to see if there is any difference in success in certain advanced courses that can be traced back to specific versions of multi-approach courses.
  • The meeting was adjourned at 2:56pm.

Action Items